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Save the planet: buy a puppy

Posted on Wednesday, November 26th, 2008

Insightful story from the Sydney Morning Herald web site by Mari Gibson. Its all about ways we (and our cats & dogs) can environmentally friendly.

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“Owning pets makes environmental sense. Just remember to pick up after them, writes Mari Gibson.

The best thing a pet can do for the environment is be its loveable self. That way it might encourage us to have fewer children - or none at all.

“A dog has a smaller carbon footprint than a human so if they are child substitutes, which increasingly they are, it may well slow down the pace at which we destroy the world,” says Mark Lawrie, the president of the Australian Veterinary Association.

Child substitutes or not, 63 per cent of Australia’s 7.5 million households in 2005 owned a pet, according to the Petcare Information and Advisory Service. So it is good news that owners are more aware of their responsibilities to the environment now than they were a decade ago.

PetNet says the main environmental issues with pets are cleaning up after dogs and keeping cats in at night. Its latest research shows that while 33 per cent of dog owners picked up their pet’s poo in 1994, 64 per cent do now. The number of cats kept in at night also rose from 63 per cent to 78 per cent.

Dog poo disposal is important if this scenario from Bankstown Council’s website is played out across Sydney: “If every dog in Bankstown (14,000 of them) were taken for a walk each day and the owners left behind just one dog poo, it would mean 511 tonnes of dog faeces would end up in our creeks and rivers each year.”

This contamination leads to an increased level of nutrients that provides the perfect environment for algal blooms, the council says. Contaminated water is also a great home for bacteria that can cause diarrhoea and health-related problems.

While cleaning up when walking the dog is easy (always attach biodegradeable bags to the leash), disposal at home throws up difficult choices.

Even if owners use biodegradable bags to deal with backyard poo, these are then usually popped into another plastic garbage bag destined for council pick-up and landfill.

Alternatives to this can include having a designated pet-poo worm farm, composting poo or putting it in an in-ground disposal unit. Then there is the old-fashioned way: dig a hole and bury it. However, the NSW Government warns against composting because of health dangers.

It seems it is up to owners to research and decide on the best environmental method. Check with your council for advice.

Other ways pet owners can look after the environment include: having pets desexed, choosing the most sustainable and healthy diet, and selecting an appropriate breed or cross-breed.

Lawrie says desexing is important for reasons other than population control. Desexed pets are less likely to stray and roam, a problem particularly relevant with cats “because they have a propensity to kill wildlife”, although it is still recommended to keep them indoors at night. For dogs, desexing means less likelihood of escaping and becoming involved in the “classic bitch-on-heat thing”.

When it comes to pet food, Lawrie suggests buying dried dog or cat food in bulk.

“It just goes back to the basics of consumerism: there’s less packaging there. We would recommend the higher-quality dry foods for a couple of reasons: one, it’s good for the dog’s health; two, often they have a higher energy content than lower-quality foods and therefore they produce less faeces - so that’s less poo in the world.”

This type of diet would also reduce consumption of red meat, with its high water and energy consumption issues, although fresh, uncooked bones are recommended from time to time to maintain good dental health.

Canned food, Lawrie says, involves high production costs, including a lot of water. He does not think making your own pet food is as environmentally friendly. But for those who do want to knock up something delicious, Choice online has pet nutrition information and home-made recipes formulated by a professor at University of Sydney (see www.choice.com.au and search for “pet food”).

As for your choice of pet, particularly dogs, Lawrie recommends paying attention to how they act.

“We encourage the incorporation of behaviour as a criterion for selection because we know that’s the biggest killer of dogs in pounds and shelters.

“It’s not a matter of too many being bred, per se; it’s a matter of too many poorly behaved dogs being bred and socialised incorrectly. It’s a combination of nature and nurture.”

Lawrie believes cross-breeds are potentially healthier than pure-bred animals, but adds: “We keep an open mind there because you can actually get a better-known product with a pure-bred dog if they’ve [breeders] been responsible. A lot of the pure-bred lines are excellent.”

Dr Alan Wilton, a senior lecturer at the University of NSW, who has studied disease genes in dogs, says: “If there is a genetic disease known in the breed, then the breeder will have the puppies tested. They don’t want to sell an affected animal. If you end up breeding sick puppies it’s a strain on the medical system for vets and owners, and a waste of resources.”

In the end it may still be the human-animal bond that counts most. A recent study quoted by BBC Green in Britain found that families with dogs (or child substitutes) were 20 per cent less likely to travel by aircraft than non-dog owning families.”

Tagged as + Categorized as Dog News

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“Save the planet: buy a puppy”

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